Was Christian Self-Sacrifice Meant for the Dark Age?
Augustine’s “City of God” as the paradigm of Catholic evasiveness
In The City of God, Augustine of Hippo expends an enormous amount of ink to avoid stating the obvious. That book is thus a cornerstone of Catholic casuistry, of using sophistry to distract from what your “lying” eyes are showing you and your “sinful” mind is telling you.
The Visigoths had sacked Rome in 410 CE, leaving many to blame Rome’s recent adoption of Christianity for the catastrophe. Evidently, the old gods had fled Rome’s defense because of the people’s lack of fealty to them.
Augustine rose to the challenge of defending Christianity against this supposed slur. On the contrary, he argued at great, telltale length, Romans had always been punished for worshipping false, pagan gods, by emulating them in their corruption and by suffering calamities throughout the empire’s history.
And Rome’s great success as an empire Augustine attributed not to that worship or corruption, but to the one true God whose will is inscrutable.
In any case, said Augustine, calamities happen to the good and the wicked alike, because of original sin.
Moreover, nothing in the City of Man matters compared to the coming City of God.
